“What about me?”
He chewed the inside of his cheek, his jaw tense, his eyes looking almost past me rather than at me.
My stomach lurched and I wrapped both of my arms tightly around it. “Oh God,” I whispered. I felt sick. I felt numb. And more than anything, I felt helpless. “Rhodes,” I breathed his name, a shiver breaking through me. “Please. Don’t go. Don’t leave.” I stepped closer, my hand shaking as I untucked it and reached out for Rhodes. He flinched, but didn’t pull away as I slid my index finger down his forearm to press hard on the inside of his wrist. “I feel your heart. It beats the same as mine. And I know you love me, too.”
His nostrils flared, his brows pulled in, and the slightest tremble quaked through his bottom lip. The sight of him almost breaking was all it took to completely shatter the fragile piece of myself I was trying to hold on to. When he shrugged me off, a sob choked through me, and suddenly the desperation I felt was too much. I lunged at him, shoving him hard enough to knock him off balance. He caught the weight of his bike, shutting his eyes but letting me hit him again and again.
“Fine! Leave!” I screamed so loud my throat hurt, my voice like a line of razor blades in my esophagus as my tiny fists pounded against his chest. “This is what you do, right? This is how it goes? I’ve memorized every inch of your back from all the times you’ve walked away from me this summer!”
Rhodes was chewing the corner of his lip, a fresh tear falling in the same line down his cheek. He was hurting, too. Why was he doing this?
I hit him once more before my hands flew to cover my mouth and I sobbed. Straightening, I sniffed, shaking my head. “You don’t get to be the one who walks away this time.” He still wouldn’t look at me. I was tired of trying to make him.
I took one last longing look at him, my body remembering everything he’d made me feel that summer all at once, and then I turned. I thought he’d spark his bike to life and leave me in the dust again, but he didn’t. He watched me go.
One final penance.
I had always felt like there was this invisible string between Rhodes and me, fastened to his heart and my own. He had pulled me toward him all summer, reeling me in, and as I climbed into the Rover and sped away, I felt the string snap, knocking me backward with the force. I choked, covering my mouth with the hand not glued to the wheel, muffling my cries.
He was leaving me, really leaving me, and there was nothing I could do about it. In less than a week, he’d be free of Poxton Beach — of me. But I would never be free of him.
I was getting a crash course in love and loss and I knew in my heart I wouldn’t be able to survive the wreckage without Rhodes to help me find the rest of my missing pieces. But he wasn’t giving me that choice.
I either had to pull myself together on my own or stay broken.
I hated both options.
It was interesting to compare my break-up with Mason to the one I was having with Rhodes. Even though we hadn’t technically been in an official relationship, I felt more for him in two months than I had ever felt with Mason in the two years we’d dated.
Still, it’s like my mind wouldn’t let me pout the way I did with Mason. I could almost hear Rhodes in my head, yelling at me not to wallow, screaming for me to be strong and pick myself up. Move forward. Forget. Leave it behind.
I didn’t try reaching out to Rhodes again. Instead, I threw all of my focus into myself. For two days, I just thought. I would run to think, take an ice bath to think, sit outside by our pool to think, call Willow to think out loud, dream with what little sleep I was getting. I was asking myself all the tough questions I had let myself ignore all summer. What did I want to do next? Where did I want to go? What mattered to me?
In a way, I was avoiding making any moves because Rhodes was here — in Poxton Beach — and so, that’s where I wanted to be. And before I met him, before he was the anchor, I just hadn’t thought about what I truly wanted aside from the fact that I didn’t want to go to Appalachian State and be like everyone else in my class.
So, after swallowing back all the fear and self-doubt, I put in my application to the Savannah College of Art and Design. I didn’t tell Mom or Dale, not that I was talking to them at all anyway, but I did tell Willow, who screamed over video chat for a solid sixty seconds. She was half-screaming because she was excited for me and half-screaming because I wasn’t going to be anywhere near her if I got in. All I could think while we talked was that I really wanted to tell Rhodes. I wanted to see the wide grin spread across his face and watch as his eyes sparkled with pride. I wanted him to pull me in for a long kiss. I wanted him to be there.
But he just wasn’t.
Still, I felt him all around me. A part of me wondered if maybe I would always have that sensation. It was strangely comforting just as much as it was terribly agonizing.
My mom always told me that before I could love anyone else, I’d have to learn to love myself. But I didn’t believe that anymore. I was beginning to realize it takes a special heart — one stronger than our own — loving us for us to realize that maybe there’s something there worth loving, after all. Maybe it was about finding love in the one person who loved you before you had the chance to love yourself.
For me, that someone was William Rhodes.
And I was forever changed by his love, regardless of the fact that I wouldn’t get to keep it.
I couldn’t sit still the night before Rhodes was supposed to leave town.
I had woken up that morning with a sickening weight in my stomach. Looking back, it’s like I could feel what was coming — almost as if I knew that day, July twenty-third, was going to be the last day I would ever be the person I was. Something was brewing, but I didn’t know what.
In my desperate attempt to keep myself busy and not thinking about Rhodes and the fact that he was leaving in less than twenty-four hours, I had decided to watch the last three episodes of Lost. But when the final episode ended, I simply clicked off the television and stared at the dark screen, thinking back to the beginning of the summer.
Dale was right. I shouldn’t have watched it.
Feeling even more lost than before, I strapped on my running sneakers and watch. Mom popped her head into my room just as I was piling my hair into a messy bun on top of my head.
“Going for a run?”
I nodded, pulling my hair tight and checking my watch battery.
“I’m not feeling very well, so I think I’m just going to go to bed.” She waited for me to acknowledge her words. Maybe she wanted me to wish her better. Maybe she just wanted me to understand her “wise” view of the world. I didn’t do either.
She sighed.
“I love you, baby girl. I know you hate me right now, and I wish I could tell you how much that breaks my heart.” Her eyes welled with tears and I felt that familiar sting and tingle in my nose. Mom and I had always been close, and we’d never fought like this before. Still, I couldn’t find it in myself to forgive her without an apology, first. “Just know I’m always here for you. No matter what. And I really do care about your best interest.”
At that last line, I rolled my eyes. “Okay. Well I’m just going to run a couple of miles. I’ll be back soon.”
One single tear dropped straight from her high cheek bone to my floor and she hastily wiped at the trail it left behind. “Goodnight, sweetie.”
I ducked out of my room right behind her. She went left toward the master bedroom and I went right, jogging quickly down the stairs and out into the warm evening air. The sun was beginning to set, streaking the sky with bright, fiery oranges and pinks. Thumbing through my phone for the right playlist, I strapped it to my arm and tapped a few settings on my watch. Then, I ran.
Each step struck every nerve in my body. I felt myself tearing at the seams and being reborn all at once. I was in such an unfamiliar place mentally, the only way I knew how to get out of my head was to get into my body.
So, I focused on each foot hitting the pavement.
I tried counting the steps as my watch counted the calories, but when I clicked over to voice mode, every word that left my lips was about Rhodes. Some of what I spoke into my watch made sense, some of it was just a string of broken sentences about memories and feelings I would never understand nor forget. I ran and ran until my chest ached and sweat leaked into my eyes to replace the salt lost in the tears I’d shed. It wasn’t that I was sad, but it wasn’t that I was okay, either. I was stuck in a confusing limbo, a sort of healing purgatory.
When I couldn’t run anymore, I walked. When I could barely walk, I hobbled. Blisters were forming on my heels and my legs burned fiercely, but I kept going. I spilled my thoughts to the watch and my sweat to the road. Finally, at just past eleven, I limped up the drive, into the house, and up the stairs to my room. Sprawling out on the floor, I stared up at the ceiling, but my eyes quickly lost focus.
I don’t know how much time passed. Maybe it was an hour, maybe it was only a minute, but sometime in the future my daze was broken by the soft buzzing of my cell phone on the carpet. I blindly felt for it, answering it without looking at the screen and holding it to my ear.
“I’m fine, Willow.”
“Bug?”
The sound of his voice jerked me upright. “Rhodes?”
Silence.
“I can’t not see you tonight,” he finally said. I could hear the pain in his words. It was like he’d been fighting them for so long that finally letting them slip into the atmosphere killed him a little. “I’m still leaving in the morning, and I can’t promise you anything more than tonight. I know I treated you like shit because I somehow always manage to fuck up the best things in my life.” He exhaled, slowly breathing life back into me. “I don’t deserve for you to come over. But I’m asking you anyway.”
I bit my bottom lip with enough force to draw blood. Relief washed over me at the same time the delicious ache from running echoed through my muscles. He wanted to see me. Nothing more, nothing less, but it was just enough to reaffirm the hope I’d been clinging to. “Give me fifteen.”
“Bug?”
“Yeah?”
There was a pause, and I felt my heartrate accelerate.
“Hurry.”
I debated not showering, but one look in the mirror changed my mind. I could barely stand as the hot water washed over me. My body was caught in a mixture of the anticipation to see Rhodes and the extreme fatigue from my run. Adrenaline could only push me so far before the aches would take over. Still, I hurried through the shower and dressed in shorts and a tank top, throwing my still-wet hair up into a bun. Foregoing makeup, I looked at myself one last time before quietly sneaking out of my room.
Tiptoeing down the stairs, I willed my heart to calm itself so I could make it the rest of the way out of the house without being detected. Mom had ripped into me after I ran out to see Rhodes at the club earlier that week. I didn’t want to take the chance of her catching me now and keeping me from him.
My hand reached for the handle on our front door just as a deep voice rang through the darkness.
“Going somewhere?”
I jumped, turning quickly and scanning the black foyer until I spotted Dale. He was kicked back in the recliner next to the couch, hands folded in his lap, amused smirk on his face. I could barely make him out, but the soft light from the kitchen illuminated him just enough for me to realize he wasn’t sober.
Great.
“Jesus, Dale,” I said, blowing out a breath. “You scared me.”
He didn’t respond.
“Um, I’m just going out for a run. I know it’s late, but I can’t sleep.”
“A run, huh?”
I swallowed, realizing I probably wasn’t too convincing at the moment. Thankfully, I had forgotten to take off my watch. Holding up my wrist, I smiled. “Yep. Got my watch set and my shoes are out in the Rover. Just going to throw them on and get started. I won’t go too far.”
He laughed, but it wasn’t the laugh I was so familiar with. It seemed sinister, and suddenly the hairs on my arms were at attention. “You honestly expect me to believe that, don’t you?” He shook his head, folding the recliner down with a pop. He was sitting up straight now, his eyes hard on me even through the dim light. “Your hair is still wet from the shower I just heard you taking upstairs. You went for a run earlier, and I know that because your mom told me just before she took her sleeping pills. I can see why you thought you’d be able to sneak out easily, what with those things knocking her out and all, but unfortunately for you, I’m still here. And I see right through your little charade. You’re sneaking out to see him, and I can tell you right now, that’s not going to happen.”
My throat was tight, my hands cold. “Dale, please,” I begged. I hated the shakiness of my voice. I wanted to demand respect, I wanted to storm out, but I knew Dale. He wanted to feel like everything was his decision. My only chance of seeing Rhodes was to make him think this was. “You got what you wanted. Rhodes is leaving. I’m never going to see him again. Just… please, give me tonight.” Hoping to play into the father-daughter relationship, I even tried a joke. “I watched the last episode of Lost today. Have some pity.” I laughed, and a smile creaked over his lips, but it fell too quickly for my taste.
Standing, Dale made his way into the foyer, crossing his arms over his chest. He scanned me from head to toe with glazed eyes, that same smug smirk reappearing as he did. I could tell he was on something, but I didn’t know what. “He really did do a number on you, didn’t he?”
I gulped, stepping back but running straight into the front door. “Dale… you’re not thinking straight. I think you should go up to bed. Sleep it off.”
He stepped closer, and I could clearly smell it — he’d been drinking. Whiskey. But the way he was acting, there was no way he was just drunk. Something else was intoxicating him.
“It’s just amazing. You were always pretty, but he made you…” His voice trailed off and he shook his head, reaching out a hand to thumb my chin. I jerked away from his touch. “Let’s just say I can see why he was so quick to claim you as his own.”
“Dale. Stop. You’re being creepy.” I tried to sound firm, pushing my fist into his chest to put space between us. He only stepped closer, wrapping his fingers around my wrist. For some reason, that simple move violated me more than his words. I only wanted Rhodes’ fingers on my wrist.
“You really want to go see him tonight, don’t you?”
I nodded, swallowing a sandpaper-covered cotton ball as he leaned even closer. He was squeezing my wrist with enough force to make my nerves jump to life. Something was wrong. And I realized at that very moment, I was scared of my step-dad.
“Well, I can let you go and not tell your mother,” he said, and though those words should have brought me relief, they only made me shake in his grip. His next sentence proved my fear to be warranted. “But you’ll have to do something for me.”
He grinned wider, licking his bottom lip as his eyes fell to mine. Bile rose in my throat and I couldn’t hide the horror that quickly appeared on my face. “Oh my God, Dale.” I tried to shove him away, but he only grabbed my other wrist, and now he had both of them in a tight grip. My heart pounded in my ears. He was serious. Oh God, he was serious.
A mixture of fear and disgust rolled through me and I jerked my arms with as much force as I could, but it barely fazed him. My muscles were exhausted, and Dale was stronger. It didn’t take me long to realize the sickening implication behind those two facts.
“Dale, please, let me go,” I cried, tugging my arms again. He shoved me back hard against the door, knocking the wind from my chest. Wide-eyed and shaking, I flexed my knee forward and connected with his groin. Dale coughed and bent forward, but kept his grip on my wrists. I squirmed against his grasp, trying to wriggle free as he strained to catch his breath again. But I was trapped. And when he lifted his head again, his dark eyes were venomous. He released one of my wrists long enough to rear back and slap my face.
The force hurled me to the ground and I hit the hardwood floor with a smack. Groaning, I grabbed my head between my hands, trying to stop my vision from spinning. Pain echoed through my skull as I tried to focus on the legs of our coffee table across the room. I blinked over and over, but the room kept sliding quickly from the left to the right in my vision. I squeezed my eyes tight, willing my head to settle, praying the dizziness would pass.
Dale dropped down on top of me, pinning my wrists above my head. My chest was tight, my breaths labored. I felt the panic setting in and I couldn’t think straight. Shaking my head wildly, I thrashed against his grip, my eyes wide, vision still blurred.
“Dale! Stop! Please!” I screamed for Mom, but that only made him laugh. He knew as well as I did that she was passed out and not even my screaming was going to wake her. When a sickening snarl curled on his lip, I realized this was how he liked it. He wanted me to fight. He wanted me to struggle.
I swallowed back the acid rising in my throat, squeezing my eyes tight again. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.
“God, you smell so good,” Dale whispered, inhaling a deep breath against my neck. I squeezed my eyes tighter as hot tears leaked out of each one. I focused on them as they seared a trail from my cheeks to my ears. When I felt Dale fidgeting with the spandex band of his sweatpants, my eyes snapped open.
I bucked against him, thrashing, kicking, screaming, crying. A rush of adrenaline had sparked to life and I tried so hard to help it catch fire. I tried to head butt him, to knee him again, but every attempt was futile. My muscles wouldn’t cooperate, and Dale wouldn’t budge.
“Dale,” I groaned, tears streaming, throat aching. “God, please. Please stop. Please. Please.” I said the word over and over, praying to his humanity or God or whoever would listen first.
“Shhh,” he whispered, touching his finger to my lips as his other hand still held my wrists firmly in place. I shook my head against the touch. “Just relax.”
I choked on a sob, writhing beneath him. My heart was pounding in my ears. It was beating so fast. Too fast. I was going to pass out. I was sure of it.
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